SATA Raid?

ElementalDragon

The One and Only
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8 Aug 2002
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Is a SATA Raid setup a major plus for a normal home gaming PC? Thinkin about buying another WD 120GB SATA drive from Best Buy or a local computer show (if it comes around soon). What advantages would say Raid 0 (which i believe is Striped, isn't it?) over having just one drive? I know it could easily make the PC boot faster and access data faster.... but does it increase games in any aspect, like loading maps for first person shooters or any other game, or actually run the game faster? someone gimme some pointers as to what to do.

[edit] never actually WORKED with a Raid system, which is why i'm asking. also, is it a real pain to get working once it's set up? Is installing Windows kinda harder due to the fact that it'll be set up on a Raid config, or is it just another step to do? [/edit]
 
I believe that if done correctly Windows should see the RAID drives as just 1 drive so should install/setup same as always. :) Also RAID 0 may speed up loading of disk intensive task a bit but I think normal everyday things you wouldn't notice as much an increase.
 
Installing Windows on a RAID array will require you to use a driver floppy during the initial installation phase. Apart from that, it should be as usual.
 
does data write failure actually happen somewhat often? since, u know, will only have 2 hard drives which ain't enough to use the ones with parity bits and crap.
 
I've been thinking of moving to a RAID set up when I build my new system in xmas. However, having thought about it over the past few months, I'm beginning to wonder why one would want to either have "one" drive or have mirror images of the main drive. I'd personally prefer to separate files on different drives so that if one develops a problem it does not affect the other. i.e. system files on one, and backup/documents on the other.
 
For home users, RAID setups are not very pratical other than speed advantages found in RAID 0 setups. In the business world, however, RAID setups (especially RAID 1) are a requirement (well, not required, but very foolish if you don't).
 
ElemantalDragon,

Setting up a RAID0 SATA is going to be great for loading games into memory to start, but once game is loaded and ready to play, you will not notice an improvement to game play. Because the games are CPU/RAM intensive.

Here is a good read about illusions/facts about RAID0

http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/515/1

MaximumPC has come to the same conclusion, I will pull out which edition that they benchmarked and came up with same results. I have it here somewhere.

I think that data corruption happened to me last week as out of the blue, my NTLDR file was missing on boot up. Windows was running super stable and I was not installing any new proggies.

Heeter
 
I never liked raid0 because of the non fault tolerance it has - lose a drive, lose all data. Reading that site made me realize that I don't like it even more. Thanx for the info.

Here is more raid info: http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html
 
In reality, you'd need 3 drives just to use Raid (0) - 2 for the Raid set up, and one for storage of important documents and files.
 
Hey I just found that MaximumPC issue,

It is the October 2004 issue, actually should still be up in newstands. Editor talks about his setup (same as mine, 2 x 36GIG 10,000RPM Raptors). Any regular Maxtor DiamondMax 10 HD kept up or was actually FASTER than the dualHD,RAID0 setup. This is for gaming only.

Heeter
 
Heeter: i jus looked at the stats for those hard drives (the DiamondMax 10). they are the newer ones that use Native Command Queuing. that is probably why they have excellent performance. hmm....... maybe i could get one of THOSE for a RAID0 setup. though my Western Digital might drag it down anyway. maybe i'll jus use my WD for somethin else, like my PoS Sony Vaio that i haven't used in a while that's collecting dust in my room. :)
 
Hi E,

In your original post, you did mention that it was the gaming aspect that you might be interested in. If you should purchase a DiamondMax10, if I were you, I would avoid the RAID0 setup with it, and the associated cost with it. My RAID0 collapsed on me last week, and I had to reinstall everything from scratch. Wouldn't your WD 120Gig have the same specs as the MAX10? Or roughly the same?

Heeter
 
ED, dont bother with RAID0 this is little to no benefit to you as as desktop user to it, its just a waste of disk space for a small gain.

Your best off with anew Maxtor DiamondMAx Plus 10 or two and getting a SATA controller with NCQ onboard.
 
Heeter: Western Digital's WD1200JB (think that's the model name) 120GB hard drives don't have Native Command Queuing. actually, i think the DiamondMaz 10 is the first to have it.
 
options, raid 0,1, or 0-1, first being striped, then mirrored, then striped and mirrored.

i run two sata raptors in raid 0, the new system will have 4, as far as games, load times are phenominal, in fact whenever hard drive access is needed, it is fast. as far as acutal gameplay, no difference. ripping of movies, cd's, and other stuff, rendering movies, movie editing, i noticed a difference.

setup was a breeze, install, use the onboard setup for the raid, then use a floppy to install the drivers for it in windows setup and it is butter from then on.
 
i just found a maxtor drive i believe it is, has a 16mb cache buffer, 7200 rpm drive, has that command cue, comes in either sata or pata. 300gb. sounds intriguing, i would like to purchase one to compare it with my current setup.
 
LA, do they actually MAKE SATA controller cards with that Native Command Queuing built in? so i wouldn't have to buy a new hard drive with NCQ to get the speed benefits of it?
 
Yes people do and yes you would :D

Dont ask me where to find ther cards though, i'm only aware of Intel's ICH6
 
u kinda confused me there, LA.

"Yes people do" = i know that's saying that people do make SATA Controller cards that support NCQ

"Yes you would" = ??? i..... would still have to buy a NCQ enabled Hard Drive? or i would get the benefits of NCQ without a new NCQ enabled hard drive? gotta kinda specify on that one.
 
as in yes you would need to buy an NCQ enabled drive to take advantage of NCQ
 

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